John Ashbery and American Poetry

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Manchester University Press, 2000 - Literary Criticism - 245 pages
A discussion of the poetry of John Ashbery. Showing that a sense of occasion - the sense that the poem should be fit for its occasion - was a binding principle for the poets of the New York School, David Herd traces the development of Ashbery's poetry in the light of this idea. The book is a study of Ashbery's career and also a history of the period in which that career has taken shape. The development of Ashbery's poetic is set against such culturally defining issues as: the institutionalisation of literature; the rise and fall of the avant-garde; mass culture; Vietnam; the absence of a divine presence; the erosion of tradition; the growth of celebrity; and the emergence of AIDS. Ashbery's responses to such issues are set against the work of Lowell, Berryman, O'Hara, Koch, Burroughs, Ginsberg, Oppen and Larkin.

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Contents

the early poetry and its backgrounds
26
collaboration and the New York School
52
The Tennis Court Oath and the poetics
69
Copyright

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About the author (2000)

David Herd is Senior Lecturer in English and American Literature at the University of Kent

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